Calendars

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc. unveiled a daring overhaul of its mobile operating system to kick off its annual developers conference, where it hopes to show critics that it has lost none of its innovative swagger. In addition to unveiling iOS 7, the company made a blizzard of other product and feature announcements that included upgrades to MacBook laptops and a new streaming radio service. As expected, there were no new iPhones or iPads, which are often announced separately. But the presentation seemed in spirit to also be a rebuttal to critics who contended that Apple had lost its innovative edge in the last year.

Santa Anita came away the big winner Thursday when the California Horse Racing Board tentatively approved racing dates for 2014 and 2015 in response to the pending closure of Betfair Hollywood Park on Dec. 22. Santa Anita will expand its usual fall meeting by more than two months, starting Dec. 26 and lasting through July 6, 2014. The Arcadia track will be in session for all three of the lucrative Triple Crown races. Santa Anita also gets the days for a possible 2014 Breeders' Cup during an autumn meeting that will run from Sept.

For banks and many businesses, the end of the year used to mean that it was time to give away free calendars bearing the corporate logo or advertising. But these days, companies are more likely to give away a T-shirt or a cap. Although the dollar sales of commercial calendars have increased, sales of other promotional items, such as T-shirts, have grown much faster and have won a greater share of the market, according to the Special Advertising Assn. in Irving, Tex.

Spring and summer are the ripe seasons for dance mega-fests and their six-figure headliners, which means March is the month when the weirdos come out. L.A. hosts a nice slate of outsider electronica this month that dips into disco, noise, bass music and svelte minimalism. Here's the best of the lot this month. On Friday, pool-party-skulking house savants Guy Gerber and Droog hold down at Sound (1642 N. Las Palmas Ave.), while the disco revivalist Daniel Wang brings roller rinks and big pianos back at the Eagle (4219 Santa Monica Blvd.)

Now that that the temperatures aren't so gnarly at the beach, you might want to head to Ventura on Saturday for the first Ventura Oysterfest to celebrate our favorite mollusks. According to the news release, the idea is to “show off the best of what's local: exceptional cuisine, great music, crated beers and outstanding local wines.” To provide the oysters, the organizers have called on oyster farms up and down the California coast. Those attending include the Jolly Oyster , Drakes Bay Oyster Co. , Tomales Bay Oyster Co. , Pickleweed Point Oyster Co . and Carlsbad Aquafarm . Plying the crowd with noshes will be Ventura County restaurants the Sidecar , Osteria Monte Grappa , Twenty88 Food & Drink , Ventura Meat Co. and more.

If indeed our process for numbering years derives from a particular religion's specific event, then, considering the notional separation of church and state, if cities shouldn't erect nativity scenes at Christmas, how can they spend money on Y2K celebrations? JOHN R. HARRIS Huntington Beach Calendar observance days keep changing with the times and with the whim or agenda of those who print the daily life guides for Americans. The commercial, widely available scheduling calendars now list as many as 23 foreign holidays in addition to our own patriotic days, fun days and a growing number of religious observances.

For those of you disappointed that the world didn't end last week, there's more bad news: The world probably won't be ending in 2040, either - not from a certain giant asteroid, anyway. Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii have found that the asteroid 2011 AG5 is no longer a major threat - it won't be hitting Earth in February 2040, as had been earlier feared. That's good to know, given that an asteroid that large - roughly 150 yards across - would have hit the Earth with several thousand times the combined energy of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. 2011 AG5 was earlier thought to have a 1-in-500 chance of hitting Earth - alarmingly high, by planetary science standards.

A male model wearing a kilt of black vinyl strips, a red belt with a gold buckle and little else is flexing his muscles amid fake oil derricks and Roman columns in a photo studio. All chiseled pectorals and tanned thighs, he is playing Captain Moroni, a battlefield hero in the Book of Mormon who rallied troops with the Title of Liberty banner. Chad Hardy, who is running the photo shoot, adjusts the model's kilt. Captain Moroni lifts his chin, grips a sword and hoists the banner.

Today Hike: A 3- to 4-mile walk through the Donna O'Neill Land Conservancy. 9 a.m.-noon. Adults, $10; children, $5. 28672 Ortega Highway, San Juan Capistrano. (949) 489-9778. Cleanup: Save Our Beach, in conjunction with Surfrider/Seal Beach, holds a beach cleanup. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. 1st Street beach parking lot, 1st Street and Ocean Avenue, Seal Beach. www.saveourbeach.org Sunday Holiday fair: The annual Swedish Christmas Fair features handicrafts, food and Swedish Christmas carols. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Justin Gimelstob certainly is no Martin Luther King. But he has a dream. He is unhappy that professional tennis left Los Angeles and he wants it back. To that end, the first L.A. Tennis Challenge will be played Monday night at Pauley Pavilion. It is an exhibition, not a real tournament. Former tour player Gimelstob and his co-host, current player Mardy Fish, want the public to think of it as a bridge to the future. This is the city of Jack Kramer and Pete Sampras, to name just two, and Gimelstob feels that, if nothing else, their legacy deserves more than vacant dates and empty courts.

In a swift and simple ceremony at the White House, President Obama was sworn in for a second term Sunday and embarked on another four years leading a nation hobbled by a weak economy and gripped by political division. With his family at his side and his hand on his wife's family Bible, the 44th president began the new term on an understated note, repeating the oath of office in a private ceremony the day before a more lavish, public reenactment. The intimate event was an adherence to tradition prompted by a quirk of the calendar.

Aristocracy's bitter fruit It is embarrassing to me to see that so many educated American citizens are "star-struck" by wealth such that, to them, wealth itself seems to be an end justified by any means ("Lording It Up," Jan. 6). This show is about aristocracy. Aristocracy has been recognized as a crime against humanity. All of the pretty little fantasies about aristocracy (kings, queens, princes, etc.) are incomplete without the truth of the subjugation of millions in each of the respective countries and the refusal by these aristocrats to recognize the pain and suffering of their fellow human beings, while keeping to themselves all of the wealth of their respective countries, violently where necessary.

Hit the road, Jack. That may well be the take-away for musicians when reading Calendar's annual Ultimate Top 10 list, a ranking that combines income from recordings as well as the concert box office to show who had the most lucrative years according to numbers reported by Nielsen SoundScan and the concert industry-tracking publication Pollstar. Since the Ultimate Top 10 began in 1998, there's often been a sizable split between the acts that make their nut from touring and those earning most of their money at physical and virtual cash registers from recordings.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Kevin James on Tuesday accused rival Wendy Greuel of unlawfully using her position as city controller to advance her campaign for mayor. Greuel's newly released appointment calendars, James said, show an alarming abundance of campaign meetings and events during business hours, often with city staff assigned to attend. "If you review the city ethics code, you can find any number of violations as a result of these activities," James told reporters outside City Hall.

BEIJING - How does the Chinese worker kick off the new year? With eight consecutive days of work, starting Friday. Blame it on the country's notorious holiday calendar, which critics say has about as much respect for weekends as it does for logic. Every year, the Chinese proletariat is subjected to a new twist in official scheduling that must take into account seven national holidays, four of which aren't anchored by the Gregorian calendar. The results are several public holidays during the week that are essentially canceled out by forcing workers to make up for the lost production over the following weekends.

Sweet 16 faded and was replaced by a physical and, at times, surly-looking 17. The Clippers' path to their 17th consecutive win wasn't exactly smooth Sunday night, looking more like one painful floor burn. They were pushed, and they pushed back hard in a 107-96 victory over the Utah Jazz at Staples Center behind Caron Butler's 29 points, which included six-for-six shooting from three-point range. The victory completed a 16-0 December that made them the third team in NBA history to go unbeaten in a calendar month.

For those of you disappointed that the world didn't end last week, there's more bad news: The world probably won't be ending in 2040, either - not from a certain giant asteroid, anyway. Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii have found that the asteroid 2011 AG5 is no longer a major threat - it won't be hitting Earth in February 2040, as had been earlier feared. That's good to know, given that an asteroid that large - roughly 150 yards across - would have hit the Earth with several thousand times the combined energy of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. 2011 AG5 was earlier thought to have a 1-in-500 chance of hitting Earth - alarmingly high, by planetary science standards.